At 80, a college grad at last

Friday

May 30, 2014 at 6:30 PM

By Spencer Buellsbuell@wickedlocal.com

Her grandkids likely can’t remember a time when Jan Conley wasn’t a college student.Since 1993, not counting a four-year break, she has been taking one class each semester at the Harvard Extension School – working slowly, but surely toward the degree in history she has always wanted.On Thursday, Conley was to walk across the graduation stage in "The Yard," as she affectionately calls it. She is 80 years old."It wasn’t easy, let’s face it," she said, especially her math courses. But she said she enjoyed every day of the 17 years she spent in the classroom. "I just love to learn."Conley, who has lived in Arlington since 1969, first started taking classes at age 60, as she began winding down a 20-year career in real estate. Getting a college degree had been her dream since she was a child, she said, when all of her male relatives got to go off to school, but she couldn’t – including her brother, himself a Harvard grad in the class of 1957.She took a break from school after her husband died in 1999. To get her back in the classroom, it took encouragement from her brother, who agreed to take no-credit courses with her.The decision to get back on the career track, she said, came as an epiphany. When the time came for exams, Conley said, she told her brother she was disappointed when she couldn’t take that day’s test."I said to him, ‘I want to take the midterm.’ He said, ‘What? I’ve never heard anybody say they wanted to take a midterm!"She earned an associate degree in 2007, and kept going – earning one credit per semester for the next seven years."She’s like clockwork," said Mark Ouchida, director of undergraduate advising for the school. "It’s difficult sometimes for older students, who end up with their own health difficulties and have to stop going, but she was always quite spirited, energetic and determined."In all her years at school, Conley said she has never missed a class, and her grades were always strong -- in 17 years, her worst were a pair of B-minuses. Admittedly slow with a computer keyboard, she wrote all her papers in longhand, and her daughter Kathleen typed them out for her.And she sought regular advice, in person and on the phone, from Ouchida about exactly which courses she’d be most interested in taking, so she could fine tune her schedule."She had a real sense of purpose as to why she was taking these courses and I would say that her perseverance is just incredibly impressive," he said. "That’s what other much-younger students can learn from her, because of the example she set."It’s that message Conley said she hopes has been passed on to her grandchildren, who are themselves college students and graduates. She said she loves talking with them about their schoolwork, especially history."Those kids keep me young," she said. "They say that I inspire them."Conley isn’t finished yet. She said she plans to keep taking courses, for no credit, for as long as she feels like it.Her advice for others her age considering going back to school?"Do it! Do it!" she said. "You know what? It keeps your brain going. You have to learn."Follow Spencer on Twitter: @AdvocateSpencer